Posted last week with questions about ticket prices and the difference between TGV from CDG and idTGV trains. As it turned out, we purchased idTGV tickets on-line a few days ago even though we will have to make the transfer from CDG to Gare de Lyon. Since today was the first day (90 days out from our travel date) I could check TGV fares from CDG, I got on line just to see what they would have been had we gone that route.

I thought I would drop a note here with the pricing info for our particular situation for anyone who might be making the same decisions about train travel.

We bought idTGV tickets RT Paris - Montpellier.
Paris to Montp was 131 for the four of us, or 32.75E a head.
Montp to Paris was 76 for the four of us, or 19E per person.

Today was the first day I could check for PREMS out of CDG -- I am happy to report I do not suffer from buyer's remorse.

The best fare for our travel date was 68E (per person, one-way). The train we had originally planned to take from CDG (before I learned about idTGV) had no PREM available with a ticket price of 109E per person one way.

As they say, it pays to shop around. (and read this board for excellent advise like I was able to get.)

You done real good!!! And as I mentioned in one post, there is not guarantee you could get a prem for your return trip to Paris. I had never heard of these particular fares. Do you know what the "id" stands for?

Good for you, Molloy.

Thanks for posting back! Glad you saved so much money. Barring special offers, iDTGV are the cheapest by fare IF you buy well in advance. "iD" when prounced in French sounds like "idée" which means idea. So iDTGV = ideaTGV.....

By the way, you can now buy iDTGV tickets 60 days in advance.

The official website for the iDTGV is http://www.idtgv.com/. However, the english version of the site is sadly out of date.

Typo alert! I meant to say you can now buy iDTGV tickets 6 MONTHS in advance.

As for myself, I found myself buying round trip tickets from Paris to Avignon 2 days ago. I ended up buying an idTGV ticket and a Prem's ticket, both in 1st class, because they were cheaper than the cheapest ticket offered in 2nd class! The internet is a strange and wonderful device. I was interested to note that even though I clicked just once to buy both tickets, I was debited by two different organisms for the 2 amounts -- SNCF and IDTGV.

kerouac, my guess for the reason you were billed by two different companies is that idTGV is independent of SNCF. This I found out when I was double billed by idTGV and had to contact someone for a correction and tried to go through SNCF. I hope you don't mean you were debited twice by each, horrors!!! Deborah

I've just started looking into traveling to Provence, and was thinking of taking the train from Paris to Avignon. Pardon my ignorance, but what does "PREM" signify? I'm still trying to sort out the TGV and idTGV options.

A PREM ticket is a nonrefundable, nonexchangeable discounted fare. You can buy them starting 60 days out from your date of travel.

flsd: Be sure to have a look at MorganB's excellent guide to the French rail system: http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34803732

From what I've been able to figure out, the idTGV trains (or maybe just the idTGV cars hooked onto a regular TGV in some instances??) are identical to the TGV duplex cars, but offer two ambiances (Zen and Zap; as you can probably tell, Zen is supposed to be quiet and peaceful and Zap is where I will be with my 9 and 6 year old Zap are on top and Zen is darker and quieter on the bottom level.) idTGV trains are operated by a private company. Because its employees are not public employees the pay scale is different (lower), which has caused some uproar in France.

Another difference was that we could have caught the regular TGV at CDG, but the idTGV departs from Gare de Lyon. So do the idTGVs to Avignon:
http://www.idtgv.com/voyager/horaire...s_avignon_tgv/ It doesn't look like you can catch any of the idTGV trains at the airport.

You can book idTGV 6 months before you travel, but the TGV only 90 before you travel.

Good luck with your planning and ask any questions here. I got wonderful, detailed advice here as I was making our plans.

Maybe I don't really mean "uproar", but I did read an article when I Googled idTGV criticizing the privitization and resulting lower pay scale. I suppose it's less likely that idTGV will go on strike, but more likely that the trains might be pelted with rotten tomatoes ??

Actually that controversy was settled, and all of the employees of idTGV are indeed employees of the SNCF with the same rights and privileges. SNCF is the 100% owner of idTGV. That's why I was a little surprised to be debited for one half of my ticket by the SNCF and the other half by idTGV.

Oh, that's interesting. Thanks for that info Kerouac. Why the distinction then? Is it just a market concept, with the different environments? I see that idTGV trains only serve certain destinations. Is there a long-term plan/strategy?

And the more pertinent question -- why am I so intereted that I'm posting this question on the Fodor's board???

It's just marketing strategy to make the train seem cooler and things like Easyjet totally middle class. If they haven't already started, I'm sure they will have speed dating any minute in the 'zap' cars (not that speed dating is cool). The whole point of idTGV is to get people to reserve trips they normally would have no intention of taking except for the price, 6 months ahead of time. The lowest idTGV fare is 19 euros for any destination, but for example I paid 50 euros for 1st class, because it was cheaper than the lowest SNCF fare. And I should mention that it was the SNCF site that gave me the idTGV fare and sold me the ticket -- I never even went to www.idtgv.com.

And yes, I confirm that idTGV cars are just special cars attached to a normal SNCF TGV train.

I think it is interesting to figure out these things, and the entire iDTGV concept was definitely a plan for specific marketing reasons. I don't know why they set it up as a separate company, more or less, but imagine that was for business reasons.

The term does sound like Idee TGV, but it has a real meaning, which is Intér-actif-Détente TGV. This type of ticket is solely sold on the internet (maybe that's the interactive part), and it was specifically started to compete with the low-cost airlines that were selling seats for around 20 euro (such as Ryanair, perhaps, or some of those British ones). That is why it is only on specific routes (Paris-Avignon-Marseille or Toulon, etc, down that area), because that is the competition. So, if airlines drop those routes, I would suspect iDTGV fares to disappear on them.

Thanks for the explanation.

Speed dating . . . . that cracked me up! Thanks to both you and Christina for your insights. That makes sense that the game plan is to rival Ryan Air, Easy Jet, etc.

I just purchased idTGV tickets through the sncf website and printed the tickets out. When I printed them, I entered the birthdate as month/day/year. I later read this and realized that I should have entered it as day/month/year. Since they are idTGV, they can't be changed and I already printed them. Does anyone know if this is going to be a problem when boarding if I show passport and license?

Thanks in advance for any input here.

I'm sure that it will be no problem -- it is more important to see your name on the passport.

As for speed dating, it has begun! They are now allowing people to book by affinity so that people with the same interests will be seated together!